hobson's choice · one-option
Ask PrometheusA choice whose walls another has set so that one option is open, and the only other action within reach is to take nothing.
Hobson's choice (noun) means: A choice whose walls another has set so that one option is open, and the only other action within reach is to take nothing. It emerges from choice, wall, set, options: The setter keeps the form of a choice while setting walls on each option but one; the only other act within reach is refusal, which takes nothing. The thing is free to choose and has nothing to choose among. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 18, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).
ordinarily means: a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered: take it or nothing
Examples
- Thomas Hobson, a Cambridge carrier who hired out horses in the early 1600s, required each customer to take the horse nearest the stable door or none at all. history
Emergence
- a choice in form with one option in fact
- refusal as the only alternative
- power that looks like a free offer
Chain to foundations
full chain as text (343 steps)
- hobson's choiceL18
- choiceL9
- wallL8
- setL9
- optionsL8
- openL17
- actionL4
- reachL13
- takeL6
- nothingL10
- powerL14
Neighborhood
Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.
Relations
| contrasts-with | double-bind.contradictory | one window left open vs contradictory walls leaving none |
| contrasts-with | zugzwang.forced | zugzwang: many actions, each worse; hobson's choice: one action worth taking, or nothing |
| contrasts-with | choice.decision | a choice selects among options; a hobson's choice has the form of one and a single option |